


A Gift

by TomSevenstrings



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dark Jon Snow, Drabble, F/M, One Shot, R Plus L Equals J, post dance with dragons, revived jon snow allied with dany
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 08:32:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18070076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomSevenstrings/pseuds/TomSevenstrings
Summary: Bound with the knowledge of his true parentage, Jon Snow left the Wall after his death to join with the invading queen in the south, Daenerys Targaryen.





	A Gift

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble has been sitting in my files for a few months after I pondered how Dany might take to a darker, "reborn" Jon Snow who turns up from nowhere and begins fighting for her. Turns out she'll do anything for him. It's set post ADWD and maybe even post TWOW, either way Dany is in Westeros and most of the events are hinted to already. I'm posting it just to upload something again, even short, and hope it might offer some of the same small enjoyment or inspiration I got from an interesting idea like this one.

Daenerys Targaryen spied from afar the rising plume of smoke that had once been Harrenhal, and the taste of ash and fire still lingered on her tongue. _A pyre fitting enough for Euron Greyjoy,_ she thought, _let him burn for an eternity._

Victory had not come easy, but as the day dawned anew, Daenerys lived and he did not. She spun her Silver and started further up the ridge toward the treeline, the crust of thin snow cracking beneath every trot. Trailing from the south her army marched steadily, a mass of ruddy men-at-arms and Unsullied and Dothraki warriors all weary from battle.

Rustling, her black steel scales still clung to her skin like sweat. The battle was won, but there was still no time to bathe or change or sleep. _North, we must go north._ In her waking hours it was Marwyn, and when she slept it was the boy with the wolf’s face. _North,_ they both said, _the true enemy._

And north she would go, but not alone. The winter sun hung white in the pale clouds, and Dany had a gift to give. She listened to it rattle on her horses rump as she rode ahead to Tyrion and the others.

Tyrion greeted her with half a smile as she came beside him, “You are bleeding.”

Smeared along her temple, Dany touched at the dry blood with a finger. _Not mine._ She looked along the group of them; Tyrion at the fore with a ribald smile, Jorah and Marwyn arguing close behind, Grey Worm and Ser Loras and Brown Ben Plumm riding in solemn silence. “Jon?” she asked.

“He went ahead with that wolf of his.” Tyrion pointed north where the path rose to a crest, flanked by elms blanketed in snow. Dany dug her heels and rode onwards, her red cape fluttering behind her with every trot.

From atop the ridge the land spread out below her, the road ahead showered in smooth snow glistening white… unmarred but for two steady tracks spiralling east into the trees. Dany smiled and followed them from the path and below the canopy, where under the shadows her armour turned black as pitch.

Night would soon be upon them, she knew, and the days were short and growing shorter. “It will only grow worse the further north we go,” Jorah had warned her, but she did not mind. Dany had never seen snow before, and every league brought new land and new sights.

Ducking, she steered around a tree and onwards. Each breath rising into the air before her. The silence was deafening. _How far did they go?_ She wandered, _how far have we come?_ King’s Landing flashed in her mind’s eye, the wildfire… _no, if I look back, I am lost._

 _Illyrio betrayed me, plotted against me, used me like a pawn in his plans to seat his own son on the throne_. She shook her head. _I didn’t know, could’ve never known. My father, I never thought… not truly.. not…_

She gasped to a stop, her heart beating loud in her ears.

Ghost waited before her, his two eyes fixed on her own. The direwolf was of a height with even her Silver, all white and still and fierce, and Daenerys did not dare break the stare.

“Ghost!” The voice shattered the silence into the wind. The huge white wolf spun his head, sniffed, then bounded away through the trees. Jon Snow emerged not long after, leading his horse with the reins.

Daenerys Targaryen looked him over from atop her saddle. He still wore the armour she had given him for the battle. Scratched and dented a thousand times over, but even, and it fit him well-enough as though it had been his all along. He watched her with his grey eyes, she saw, he was all blood and mud and ash and smoke, he was all warrior.

Her words fumbled out before her before she had time to think of them. “I-I’m not frightened of him, you know.”

Jon mounted his horse in one swift movement. “I would expect no different from the mother of dragons.”

She set the pace, back toward the road. “Why did you scare him away?”

A moment passed. He looked ahead. “It was your horse I was frightened for,” he cleared his throat, “you should see what Ghost can do to a horse.”

“I saw,” though she had been astride Drogon for most of the battle, she had tried her best to not lose them both from sight. Euron’s ships had swarmed the God’s Eye, hundreds of oars and decks and black sails, and where the straggling ships met Jon had led the charge along them towards the Isle itself. “You should see what a dragon can do to a horse.”

Jon laughed. “I saw what a dragon can do to an army,” the shadows of branches and leaves swirled along his face as he moved, over his eyes and nose and lips. “They’re yours again, now.”

 _Rhaegal and Viserion,_ Dany smiled, what old magic had bound them to Euron had died with him, and they were hers once again. They were above somewhere, she knew, lost in the clouds. “Euron took them from me, but he never rode them.”

“He was no Targaryen.”

The words seemed almost pained as they left his mouth. Dany turned to him. “No, he wasn’t,” she watched him close, “that didn’t seem to stop you, though. On the Isle, Viserion would have burned you alive.”

He stopped and met her eyes. For the first time, she saw something flicker behind them. “He would have done the same to you had I not got his attention.”

Was he right? A stubborn part of her would not believe it, could not. That her own child, even sickened by magic, would burn her. She had thought much the same in that moment, as Euron weaved a web of words around her and Viserion leaned in close. Foolish and brave, Jon had appeared through the smoke, roaring like some animal until her white dragon abandoned her and found him.

His arrival had brought her back to life, and whatever words Euron had summoned were forgotten, and she bathed him in flame until his armour shone so bright it lit up the night. “You didn’t run,” Dany could see it now before her eyes. They were so close that Viserion’s breath ruffled through his hair, so still they almost seemed content. “He didn’t burn you.”

“No,” Jon looked away, then shook his head, “it was as you said. Euron and his curse over them was gone. Had you not been there, the dragon wouldn’t have spared another moment.”

His words left a sinking feeling in her stomach, but she nodded in agreement as they rode on. _He’s right,_ that she knew, but Dany could not shake the image from her mind, no matter how hard she tried. It was as though the world around them had froze, and as she had stared she half-expected Jon was about to mount her dragon and bend him to his will.

 _Three dragons, and only one rider,_ the truth she could not ignore.

Suddenly they came along a bank, Jon reared to a stop and shot out a hand. “Careful,” he said, “it’s steep here.”

“Do you know nothing of me at all?” she asked him, cantering forward through the gap of two trees. “Why they call me the khal of khal’s?”

She left him with that, dashing down the bank as fast she could, leaving him behind in a flurry of snow. When her Silver reached the bottom and they began to thread through the trees, she heard Jon close behind. _He is struggling._ Dany laughed so loud it rang through the trees. He was a good rider, but no Dothraki.

She was so far ahead by that time she stopped that she had lost all sight of him. “Jon?” she spun about. They were closer to the road now.

“You’re half a horse,” Jon said from behind her.

She jumped, turning around to face him. The laugh on his face was gone as quick as it came, and suddenly Dany remembered why she had sought him out “Oh,” she said, “I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?”

Daenerys climbed down from her horse, landing steadily on the snow. She felt him watching her as she untied it from the back of her saddle and brought it down to her chest. The gift was feather light in her hands. “It was too big for me,” slowly, she unwrapped it.

The Valyrian steel scales Euron had donned were still warm against her touch, but they shone cool and dark under the pale light, edged with red gold that swirled with every sway. “Not even dragonfire was enough to melt it,” she ran her eyes over the countless patterns in the metal, the whorls and glyphs and runes. _Do they protect it from the flames?_

Jon joined her on foot. She met his eyes. “It’s yours.”

His mouth hung open. “Mine?” he stuttered, running a gloved hand over the scales before he quickly pulled away. “It’s… I can’t take this.”

“You can,” Dany held it towards him, “consider it my thanks, for what you did.”  

“Thanks? This is Valyrian steel, enough of it to buy a kingdom. Keep it, give it to one of the others, they have done more for you than I have.”

His refusal was like a slap in the face. Was she wrong to give it him? When they had brought it to her at dawn, she had no second thoughts. If she could not have it, Jon was the only other. “If I meant to give it to them, I would have. This is yours, Jon.”

He knew better than to refuse then. Hesitantly, he took it in hand. “Thank you, Dany.”

Her name rarely sounded so sweet. Daenerys Targaryen felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach, she felt a girl again, she felt warmth and wonder at the thought of him in it, beside her atop a dragon…

… the thought was as sweet as it was dangerous, that she knew.


End file.
